


we dance this dance, you and I, we mismatched lovers

by Verdantia



Category: Darker Than Black
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-16 01:40:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29693085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verdantia/pseuds/Verdantia
Summary: In which Hei (not Li) and Misaki go on a date.Kind of. Not really. Ehhhh, you'll see.
Relationships: Hei & Kirihara Misaki, Hei/Kirihara Misaki
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	we dance this dance, you and I, we mismatched lovers

“Hey.”

“Mm.”

A chopper flew overhead, and they watched it come, and watched it go. In the distance city traffic glittered, sunset rays refracting off glass and metal. Slowly the light faded, leaving behind the dirty white street lights of the city and the thrum of city noise. Still they said nothing, still they stayed.

Misaki was afraid that if she moved, Hei would disappear – a mirage of what seemed to be a person but was only a ghost, like the governmental structures she had trusted in that evaporated like fog when she had gotten too close. Hei was a phantasm, liquid smoke. She doubted even he knew who he was at any given moment, he slipped his masks on and off with such abrupt elegance. She wondered what his childhood had been like. She wondered if he remembered his childhood or if it was lost in the shifting parade of facades and covers and survival. Did he dissociate in the sunniest, happiest days, unable to reconcile his existence with the spontaneous joy of blue skies and sweet breezes? Did they turn grey and colorless for him, the specter of his victims haunting and cold from the corner of his eye?

“Hei.” He twitched. She saw it, that short, aborted movement. She saw the line of tension bow across his shoulders.

He wanted to ask how she knew that name.

She knew he wouldn’t.

“Come have dinner with me,” she finally said. “Korean barbeque. My treat.”

He turned towards her slightly, then, the tension not gone but – pushed aside, for the moment. The slightest quirk of an eyebrow, _are you sure?_

“My treat,” she repeated, and was rewarded with the tiniest nod. Then she turned away, turned her back to him, and stepped towards the door that would take them inside – off the roof, down the stairs. A closed-in space. She heard no tell-tale _thwip_ of his zip line, nor the billowing of wind inside his coat, but daren’t look back until they reached the bottom. She is Orpheus and he Eurydice, both having taken a journey so perilous, but it isn’t over – it isn’t _safe_ – until they reach the bottom and he steps up beside her and takes her hand, skin cool but pulse rabbit-fast, and she knows that he is _Hei_ and not one of the nightmares he inhabits in his sleep.

Li, she has learned, is timid-quiet, self-effacingly helpful, the world always startling and too fast so he follows and he listens and no one notices he is there until he isn’t and they feel some mild loss, of that inoffensive presence that was a comfort in its constancy. Hei is quiet, too, but the quiet of an outsider, a predator from another realm that does not fear death but does not seek danger. He is simultaneously unsettlingly settled in his own skin and quietly, secretly, confused by the humanity around him and his own. Li is an adaptation, a camouflage, a role that he can slot into easily and those around him can slot him into easily and then all are comfortable, knowing who is who and who stands where. Hei is an exercise in subtle hesitations, subtle awkwardness hidden by his natural reservation. He doesn’t possess the same social context, the same cultural filter, and it is _off_ to a human’s instincts – they don’t know whether to mock him or fear him and so skirt delicately, unconsciously, around his behavior. Hei in return is apt to balk, to bolt, to withdraw so suddenly and with such aura of danger that the fact that he is fleeing instead of chasing is thoroughly covered. Hei is an exercise in frustration. _Come home with me_ , she wishes she could say, but she knows he would not. _I trust you,_ she wishes she could say, but his eyes would widen ever-so-slightly and she would turn around and he would be gone. _I love you,_ she wishes she could say, but she knows she would never see him again.

So instead she invites him to dinner, and she can practically _feel_ his tension behind her as he fights with himself between disappearing and just letting himself have this _one nice thing,_ and she gives him space to decide – ten staircases of space, in point of fact – before she turns her head ever so slightly and in response he takes one longer step, one longer stride, and deliberately re-enters the periphery of her vision so she can see him. He reaches out for her hand and it is more than she had expected. It is more than _he_ had expected, and she can read his own startlement at his boldness in the way his fluid gait stutters ever-so-slightly for a singular moment. But she takes his hand and he does not withdraw, and together they step back outside onto the city street, by silent accord turning left down the sidewalk.

She knocks her shoulder against his as they walk, hand-in-hand, her chest warm and the slightest bit of giddy happiness revealing itself in the upward quirk of her lips. The gesture is a signal that bridges both of the languages they speak. It means _safety._ It means _thank you_. It means _don’t worry, I reserved a booth in the corner where no one will stare at you while you gobble down your immense quantities of food, you black hole._

This isn’t the first time they’ve danced this dance, after all. 

And it won’t be the last.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry, the drabble mood struck me and I had to listen. It was this or mediocre poetry and ain't no-body gonna want to read that! This is in the same pretentious style as last time I do admit, but meh, screw it. It feels nice to write this way and I might be posting for self-gratification but I'm not that far gone, lol.
> 
> (sshhhh... there's no problem with the tenses... you're imagining things... shhhhh)


End file.
